The grass really is greener with a Jim's Mowing Franchise!

Date

Feb 10, 2017

Jim's Mowing

Jim's Mowing is the world's largest garden maintenance organisation with over 2,000 franchise owners in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and now the UK. Our all-inclusive franchise package provides all...

David Hughson is a perpetually happy chap. Sometimes, in other
people, that can be quite an irritating trait, especially if you
suspect it’s a bit of an act, but with David you just know he’s a
man whose made some great work life decisions and feels the benefit
most, if not every, day.

Does he own a Formula 1 team or a football club or a brewery?
Actually, he runs a gardening
franchise and gets to play outside most days. Let’s find out
how he got there….

Between 2002 and 2005 David was the Deputy Chief Executive of
Royal London Asset Management. It was a good job with a good salary
and a nice pension and he was pretty content. Then one day he was
made redundant. The onset of dented pride, bruised ego and deflated
soul searching was fast. David had spent his whole career building
up to that point; what was he supposed to do now? What
could he do now?

Turns out, David was to take Gardening Leave quite
literally.

Having commuted between Edinburgh and London for those four
years, David had hired a professional to look after his own garden
so that he could spend more time with his family when at home.
Having been less than impressed with the quality of work getting
done, he decided to once again embrace his ‘hobby’ and get out
there and do it himself. It would give him space to think; a chance
to decide what he was going to do for the rest of his working days.
At only 46, a leisurely retirement to the golf course and cruises
didn’t seem a feasible option.

To cut straight to the Eureka moment of the story, David decided
that he wanted to go in a completely different direction and start
up his own business looking after other people’s gardens. What
actually happened, was that after much deliberation and grudging
acceptance that he wasn’t entirely sure how to go about setting up
his own business from scratch, David discovered franchising.

A relatively simple business model where an individual can buy
the right to trade under an established brand name, in an allocated
territory and make full use of the company’s business model,
training and support. David very much liked this idea and began
investigating the different gardening franchises to see which one
he felt could give him the most competitive advantage and
support.

There were, and still are, many to choose from. With a
background in investments, David had the early advantage of
understanding the full scope of what to look for in each brand.
What was the training worth? What was the support worth? What
business would be generated by the brand alone? What impact would
the franchise brand have on the resale value when he came to sell
it?

Jim’s Mowing really stood out for David when he applied
this thought process across all the gardening franchises on offer.
A huge international franchise brand, established in 1989, that had
grown from Jim’s Mowing into the Jim’s Group which has (correct at
time of writing) 41 different divisions including plumbing,
cleaning and most recently traffic control! With over 3,000
franchise owners worldwide, Jim’s Mowing ticked all the boxes David
was looking for.

Of course deciding to invest in a franchise isn’t (or at least
shouldn’t be) a simple matter of picking the one you want and
paying for it. The franchisor has a responsibility to ensure you
are the best person to run the franchise in that territory.
Franchises are usually ‘awarded’ to an individual after what can
sometimes be a long process of meetings, interviews, presentations
and business plans.

The process went very smoothly for David, greatly assisted by
the fact the Edinburgh territory that he wanted was actually
available and he had really impressed the team at Jim’s with his
research and commitment.

“I signed up in 2006, took on my first employee in March 2007,
my second in April 2007, and my third in May 2007. It literally
took off,” he said. “Although I had been office based and lifted
nothing heavier than a phone, I received all the garden training
required to launch my business and make enough clients happy to
employ six gardeners at my peak. It was quite amusing to be getting
paid for climbing trees and getting covered in mud, things that my
old man used to give me a clip round the ear for!”

The story doesn’t stop there however. A few years in, David saw
the opportunity to become on a divisional franchisor for Jim’s
Mowing in the UK. This means that David effectively owns key
development regions for Jim’s Mowing within the UK and is
responsible for supporting his franchisees in these regions. Rather
than spending his day in customer’s gardens and managing his small
team in Edinburgh, David’s focus is on supporting every Jim’s
Mowing franchisee in his regions and bringing new franchisees into
his growing network who can perform just as he did and grow
successful, profitable businesses that gives them the lifestyle
they want.

“For someone who wants to throw away the suit and tie, get
outdoors and do something physical, and make a good return from
doing so, what more could you ask for? Jim’s Mowing provides
comprehensive training, marketing and equipment support for people
from all walks of life and presents a great platform for them to
take their business in the direction that they want. Some just want
to work by themselves; others want to conquer the world. Jim’s
Mowing can happily accommodate both and everyone in between.”

According to the British Franchise Association, the UK franchise
industry has an annual turnover of around £13.7bn and employs well
over half a million people. Perhaps the most startling fact is that
92% of franchise outlets (including new businesses) are reporting
to be in profit – quite a contrast to the often dismal success rate
statistics for independent new starts.

“Investing in a Jim's Mowing franchise has been one of the best
decisions I have ever made. Being my own boss but with an
experienced support network around me has given me the confidence
to grow a very successful business. If I can help other like-minded
people to make this change and join us at Jim's Mowing and
experience the release, the freedom and the success then even
better!”

Franchising has given David and many others like him an
incredible second career that he had previously not even
imagined.

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